


The Stanford Application Essay

by 20Zvorak17



Series: Essay series [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Homeless!Sam, Homelessness, Oblivious Dean, Oblivious John, canonically bad parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 14:22:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14190900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20Zvorak17/pseuds/20Zvorak17
Summary: Most Ivy League colleges require an essay. What did Sam’s say?





	The Stanford Application Essay

The most impactful event of my life occurred when I was eleven-the month I spent homeless and alone in Chicago.

Only a few people know this-a priest, a kindly motel manager and the second-in-command for the Street Kings.

Technically I was alone for six weeks but Dad had left money for two, and paid up the motel. I’ve always known that Dad can’t quite be counted on for things like that. Dean, on the other hand, who had been mother and father and brother all my life, held my inviolable trust. When he said they’d be gone two weeks, I knew that it was true. The day they were to be back I had fifteen dollars left—not bad I thought. Then I got the phone call. “At least two more weeks; could be a month.” Then he asked if I had enough money. I wanted to scream. “Of course not!” I wanted to tell him Dad had specifically left enough for two frugal weeks. I wanted to say that the hotel was 75 dollars a night. I knew if I did, though, I would start crying, and the first lesson I remember being deliberately taught is that Winchesters Do Not Cry, Sam.

The motel manager couldn’t let me stay but he pointed out the soup kitchen and drove me to a youth shelter. The routine became this: Wake up at 4:30, catch the L-train at five. Attend morning mass because they offer free breakfast. Put the eggs on the pancake, fold it like a burrito, scarf it down and then run six blocks to school. After school go to mathletes, back to St. Peter’s for evening mass because they offer dinner too. Take the L-train two stops—three gets you closer, sure, but it lets you off in Latin Player territory—Run two miles to a truck stop. Shower, run back, repeat. A week and a half in to my routine, a cold day fixing to be an even colder night, the youth shelter was full. It wasn’t quite cold enough for pop-up shelters, though. He came up to me, at least six foot to my barely five. He introduced himself as T and asked if I needed a place to sleep. There’d be a lot of illegal stuff going on, he warned me, but they had a spare air mattress. “No kid,” he said, “ever oughta sleep on the street.” I could only thank him.

Seventeen more days went by, twice I stayed at T’s. One night, after supper, it turned out the church had a pop-up shelter. Left my bag in the morning since I was going right back.

Halfway through the day, I got called for a Family Emergency. We had to stop at St. Peter’s for my bag. Neither asked why. Neither asked if I’d been alright.

A drug-dealing gang-banger cared more for my welfare than my own family did. The life we were living had done that to them.

I knew I couldn’t let it happen to me.

**Author's Note:**

> Next in the the series Dean reads Sam’s essay


End file.
